Sanding machines and power tools are commonly used to sand and/or refinish hardwood floors. An edger sander is a power tool used to sand the perimeter region of a floor or any other areas of a floor that cannot be sanded by a larger sanding machine such as a drum or belt type sander.
Edger sanders use abrasive articles, such as abrasive sheets or discs, to strip coatings, level, and smooth scratches from all types of wood flooring prior to applying a coating, such as urethane, to the floor. Abrasive sheets and discs are available in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and abrasive particle sizes (referred to by grit number). When using abrasive articles in the form of “sheet goods”, i.e. abrasive sheets and discs, a back-up pad is often used to mount or attach the abrasive article to the edger sander. In the past, abrasive discs were bolted to the back-up pad of the edger sander by hand or using a wrench. Such an attachment system, however, made replacement of the abrasive discs unnecessarily laborious and time consuming.
More recently, hook and loop attachment systems have been provided to allow the abrasive discs to be more easily attached to and removed from the back-up pad. Conventional back-up pads, however, typically include a face that does not provide a suitable mating surface for a hook or loop type of attachment system. Consequently, abrasive articles having a hook and loop attachment system cannot be attached directly to the back-up pad, but require a back-up pad having a face modified to provide an attachment surface for a hook and loop type attachment system. This is typically accomplished with a conversion pad that is attached to the face of the back-up pad to provide the back-up pad with a mating surface for the hook and loop attachment surface of the abrasive article.
Because of the limited finger gripping space between the abrasive article and attachment surface of the back-up pad or conversion pad, however, removal of the abrasive article can be difficult. In addition, the sanding operation tends to cause the hook and loop attachment to mesh aggressively, making separation more difficult.